Death of a Poem (2009)

Sí, éste está escrito en inglés.. pero ¡fíjate en el tema que trata!

Este poema surgió (curiosamente) de mi sentido de frustración con un curso de 'escritura creativa'... Me sentía limitada por la sensación de tener que estar escribiendo para otra persona y no para mí misma, cosa que no me gusta para nada.. en fin, ya se me acercaba la fecha límite para entregar un poema y no me salía nada, me estaba frustrando bastante y de repente -- ¡que ironía! -- esta frustración me inspira lo siguiente:

"Death of a Poem"

Letters shrink under the light of scrutiny.
None is good enough.
I throw them to the furnace
my hand cramping with every new stroke

Impermanent and inconsequential ink
crowds this noisy page,
too jumbled for approval.
I drop the pen,
my mind finding refuge in Lorca*
(immortal, though he died too soon)
solace in the silence
of familiar words like paths my mind has tread.

I remember then: I am in love with a smoother tongue.
Like a river running off my palate
it opens the floodgates
and spills into another world
of lilting vowels
and weary women,
faces weathered like rough corn husks
waiting in line
for someone to hear their cracked syllables
and extend a hand.

Silencio de cal y mirto...
The words are like grooves in my mind
beaten into permanence
by the clomping hooves of gypsy horses.
I imagine tracing them with my fingers
as my discarded sounds waver in the white-hot flame.

Their mediocrity is consumed and purified
raising a meager offering to heaven.
As we eat the fruit
and leave the rind to decay,
this page, too, will languish
and will die.

But among the ashes and the smoke,
love climbs
forever
unflaggingly
up.

*Spanish poet executed by Nationalists at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War (1936). A predominant theme of his was flamenco and gypsy culture.